Okay, how about Hughes and Joba for Blanton?

Tim at MLBTR fills us in on a rather extraordinary nugget of info: Back when the Yanks were supposedly mulling around the idea of dealing for the A’s Joe Blanton, Billy Beane asked for Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain in return. Hopefully Cash replied with “Damn yo, why you gotta be wastin’ my daytime minutes for?!?”

Yeah, they must me smoking something good. They should share with the rest of us :)

Lanny

And every writer writes that Beane is so reasonable in his offers.

Like when he traded Haren to Arizona. Eveyr report after was that he was great cos he didn’t insist on Upton.

I guess that is shot to hell.

NYFan50

In negotiation one of the biggest faults people have is that they initially do not ask for enough. It’s a common mistake. Regardless of whether or not that is a realistic trade proposal it is a high bar to throw out there as an initial request, which is exactly what an initial offer is supposed to be.

Armand Castro

but i do not think you’d want to set your initial “bar” so high as to merit actual disbelief… i mean.. seriously.. BOTH!??! and like Sabernar says.. i think that’s an insult to Cashman’s intelligence..

NYFan50

If you are dealing with a stranger, you don’t want to make your initial offer so high that you insult them. If you are dealing with someone you know and have dealt with before then the likelihood of insulting them and causing them to end negotiations entirely is low.

h2munro

If we’re really polite I’d bet they’d let us give them IPK, AJAX and Tabata too. I sure hope we can pull that off.

The problem is when you’re dealing with people who know what they’re doing an offer like that won’t generate an acceptance or a counter offer. You end up having to re-bid and thereby bidding against yourself. That’s a bad spot to be in. I have a hard time believing Beane would open with something so silly if he really wanted to do anything with the Yankees at that point. Color me skeptical about the accuracy of the report.

sabernar

Blanton won’t even be as good as either one of them THIS SEASON. I understand about setting the negotiation bar high, but you also don’t want to insult the person you’re negotiating with. If I were Cashman I would have hung up on him without another word.

Rich

On reflection, I think this was Beane’s clumsy way of trying to get one of them, which he knew there was virtually no chance of happening anyway.

mustang

This was the funniest posting RAB ever !!!!!!!!
Seriously if I was a MLB owner I would never let my GM make any deals with
Billy ” I can write a book , but never win a championship” Beane.
CON- ARTIST….. very funny Mike A.

D

It’s 2008 and people still think Billy Beane wrote Moneyball?

dan

Thinking Beane wrote Moneyball is like thinking Barry Bonds wrote Game of Shadows

I hope he did a spit take and hung up the phone so he could roll around the floor in his office laughing his ass off.

deadrody

The idea that a ludicrous original demand is some kind of BRILLIANT negotiating tactic is pretty stupid. The idea of negotiations would be that Cashman would then come back with a counter offer that is below the original demand. Sorry, but as pointed out above, Cashman would not be wasting his time making a counter offer at that point.

Unless it was equally stupid like “Hey, we have an extra pitching machine – will you trade us Blanton for that and, uh, we have 15 cases of used baseballs we could part with too….

Yeah, brilliant negotiating tactic.

http://yankeesetc.blogspot.com/ Travis G.

well, Beane did get a good haul for Haren. Gammons LOVES that Gonzalez or Rodrigues RHP they got from Zona.

but that’s a completely fucked up offer. no one, not even Brian Sabean would do that.

beezr

Even as objective and logic-driven as Beane’s decision-making process supposedly is, I think he just doesn’t want to help the Yanks or be seen as having helped them. That’s the reason for the exorbitant asking price for Blanton. A man in Beane’s position probably has some real resentment towards the Yankees. I know Cashman and him are friendly with each other and I don’t think he hates the Yanks per se, but deep-down the idea of helping them probably bothers him.

Lanny

Thats the point though. Every writer says Beane is fair and knows not to ask for asburd players like Jay Bruce, Upton, Joba, Hughes, etc.

Its very weird.

Street wouldnt look bad in the 8th for the Yanks. Obv not for Hughes, Joba, IPK, etc.

http://www.thebronxzoo.wordpress.com iYankees

Honestly, Beane is just economically bitter. Why help the richest team in baseball because you’re essentially one of the poorest? He just doesn’t like doing it so he asks for extravagant packages that he knows are not possible (Moneyball even outlines that, albeit briefly). Beezr has it right. The Yanks can go after Huston Street, but he’s questionable. Let the guys they have try and work it out on their own. Street had a nerve problem last year, which is totally scary for anyone trading for him, even if he has top notch stuff.

Oh, and to anybody who hasn’t heard it yet, Ensberg was added to the 40-man. Say hello to your next bench guy.

http://aroundthemajors.blogspot.com/ Around The Majors

HAHA, looks like Beane has been smoking too much of those funny cigarettes.